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These are the three pillars on which Ed Notes is founded – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We are part of a tiny band of resisters. Nothing will change unless YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Honk if You're Proud of the UFT

I am SO proud of the CTU! "Chicago & NYC school reform: Creating possibilities versus surrendering without a struggle" http://newpol.org/node/599

So, are any of you feeling proud of the UFT/Unity Caucus machine? I know of at least one Unity Caucus chapter leader at a school threatened with closing who was handing out donuts to "celebrate" the union's "victory" in the recent agreement in ed evals. And if you checked out my last blog on the Moskowitz invasion in Williamsburg, the UFT has zero presence leaving the community to fight the massive machine on its own --- UFT leaders are fraidy cats when it comes to Eva. Or just about everything. Just check some Unity comments on this blog --- something like if you're not part of the conversation -- blah, blah, blah. Occupy a few schools threatened with being closed and you'll be part of the conversation soon enough.

Here is the Lois Weiner piece Katie was referring to.

Chicago and NYC school reform: Creating possibilities versus surrendering without a struggle

As I write, the Brian Piccolo Specialty School in Humboldt Park, Chicago is occupied by parents, teachers, and students, with Occupy Chicago and others camped outside the schol in solidarity. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is building this movement, with a wonderful wholeheartedness and passion. Bravo! The union is showing both brawn and brains. In another sign of its commitment to fight hard for the education low-income kids deserve, the CTU has released an excellent report on what we should demand of politicians who say they want to improve the schools. Another part of the Chicago strategy is using the courts. Parents are the backbone here but as a long-time community organizer in Chicago wrote me, "Honestly, we could not have done this without a progressive union leadership."

In contrast, the New York State teachers union (NYSUT) has signed an agreement that is an abject surrender of teachers' professional dignity and tightens the stranglehold of standardized tests. Let us hope - and mobilize - so that this Faustian agreement does not become the "national model" that NYSUT (and NYC) teachers union leaders would like it to be. Consider that NYSUT applauded this agreement that allows up to 40% of teachers' evaluations to be based on their students' progress on standardized tests. Yet, according to NYSUT's own poll conducted in January, two-thirds of parents "believe there is too much emphasis on state testing in public schools." Public opposition to testing has been organized by parent and teacher groups independent of the national unions, which are fearful of angering the corporate media and its political friends. Is there a principle for which the NYC and NY state teachers unions will really fight? Hmmm... maybe the right to collect dues?

We have a tale of school systems in two cities being demolished with the same policies of privatization, school closure, and deprofessionalization of teaching. In Chicago, the teachers union has mobilized with parents and activists to turn the tide. In New York, the teachers union signs and applauds a deal that endangers the job security of teachers who want to use their creativity, skill, and knowledge to teach in ways that are meaningful to kids. Chicago shows us resistance can be mobilized, if a union leadership has the heart and vision, knows how to empower its members, and can work respectfully with parents.

You can read Jeff's whole analysis of the new (d)evaluation system on the ICE blog, which he ends with a very dark prediction:

If today's agreement becomes our actual teacher evaluation system, then there will more than likely be massive teacher firings beginning in 2014.

Some of the comments are worth a chuckle. There's a lass called Sandra who thinks getting tenure in the old days was a "gift":

I don't feel one bit of pity to those teachers who were gifted tenure back in those days of desperation and think that that should save them from a true evaluation of their effectiveness ...

I'll be damned if I know what she means by "those days of desperation." I'm assuming Sandra was a youngster when the rest of us were chewing our fingernails over the Board of Ed's certification tests. The music exam was distinctly uncomfortable, even with a Masters and heading into a doctorate. You couldn't just swim in on Music Appreciation and your instrument. There were also tests on piano performance and sight-reading, and the whole thing only came around every few years. Tough titties if you failed it, because no one was going to give you NYC certification or tenure without it.

Ah, those were the days, when deep knowledge of a subject was actually valued. Now your career's a coin coss: heads if your administrator recognizes and respects variations in style, personality and methodology and makes use of your talents, tails if your evaluation is scripted by an inexperienced Tweedle or a politically appointed senior administrator.

I have to credit Wiki for using the Michelangelo painting as an antecedent of our "Perp walk."

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Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

7 weeks Old - Nov. 2011

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Interesting commentary on Bloomberg Model

"The Bloomberg model has positioned parents as customers, and principals as CEOs, with student outcomes as the product. But the backlash that the mayor has faced is from parents who don't see their schools that way. Test scores aren't always what parents care most about in a school. Many care just as much about having teachers they can connect with, places they and their children feel comfortable and respected, a school's history in the community—things that aren't quantifiable o a standardized exam."

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

Leonie Haimson on MSNBC

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Harlem $ucce$$ Academy Ad

Weingarten Sellout Tour Continues

With the myriad of anti-teacher crap pervading the headlines, AFT President Randi Weingarten thinks it's a good time to discuss faster ways to fire us.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Why did Waiting for Superman get snubbed and Exit Through the Gift Shop get nommed?

Davis Guggenheim’s doc about poor kids and charter schools got 11 major film award nominations and won four, including the National Board of Review and Sundance Audience Prize. Most pundits thought it a shoo-in. He won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, and had major help from Bill Gates, Oprah and Obama. Some fear prankster Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is all a hoax.

Why it happened: Guggenheim’s big backers may have actually irked independent-minded Academy members. Worse, his teacher’s union-bashing film was embraced by conservatives, one of whom said his Oscar snub is “the price a political apostate pays in Hollywood for straying off the liberal plantation.” Education expert Diane Ravitch trashed it as inaccurate. A more dispassionate expert says, “The first response to the movie was that it’s about poor black kids, and it’s from the Gore guy, so it must be liberal and good-hearted. And then Ravitch and others portrayed it as basically right-wing propaganda, which unsettled the liberal members of the Academy. I don’t think the movie is as reactionary as Ravitch portrayed it, but I also don’t think it’s very good.” An Oscar doc voter agrees. “It was a great deal of hype. I felt like I’d seen the story before.” “It also tanked at the box office, relative to what was spent on promoting it,” adds the education expert. “The true unforgivable sin in Hollywood!”

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Norm on the radio at "The Mind of a Bronx Teacher"

I was asked to cover for a guest too chicken to appear by Bronx Teacher on his penetrating weekly internet radio show (every Tuesday night at 9pm).

"The union has consistently been giving back since 1968."

He asked some great questions and I had a chance to get into issues in terms of historical context of the UFT - the '68 strike, the '75 massive cuts to schools and other issues to help prove my point that Randi Weingarten DID NOT CHANGE DIRECTION but continued and amplified the policies set in motion by Al Shanker.

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

An Oldie But Goodie: The Disparity Gap

Charter Schools and Tracking

Thanks for getting this posting some of the air it deserves, Norm.I think ceolaf is right about a great number of things, and particularly appreciate his systemic, meta-view of these hot button issues.

I want to substantiate a few of the points raised in this post:

1. "Charterness" is not a condition for school innovation.

Just as the reverse is not true(a a charter school is by definition innovative), public schools that are NOT charters can be innovative.The original small schools movement of the late 80's and early 90's (now coopted and transformed by Gates/DoE)spawned a number of pedagogically innovative schools.In District One, educators, administrators and community members started a handful of still popular and sucessful small schools within schools to pull back the fleeing local residents into public schools.Those Dewey-based, child-centered schools offered curriculae based on whole language, constructivist math, mixed age groupings, integrated curriuculum projects and portfolio evaluation

2. Tracking on a large scale does indeed exist.Gifted and Talented and CTT programs are used as sorting hats that are increasing racial isolation in many schools and communities.I would like to be able to substantiate this trend in the latest round of admissions, but as usual, have no access to that data from DoE yet (believe me I try)!

3. Special Ed service availability is, as ceolaf suspects, one more way to segregate and track:The two (soon to be 3) charter schools serving the District One community offer NO CTT or self contained classes.The "other public" district schools operate with plenty of both (w/ the exception of a few elite schools- a citywide K-12th G and T , a "dual language" Manadarin pre-k through 8th grade program and an elite selective HS), yet the charters offer no more than SETTS services to students.Despite the rhetoric of least restrictive environments and innovative methods for servicing students with special needs that you may hear from the OCS patricians, parents with kids with IEPs that require more services or more restrictive environments know that they need not apply to these schools.

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.